Monday, December 06, 2010

[UPDATED] IAF Mirage Upgrade Finally Final

A hardfought $2.1-billion deal to upgrade the Indian Air Force's fleet of about 50 Mirage-2000 multirole fighters is final, with a formal agreement expected to be signed in two weeks. Will update this post with details later tonight if I can.

Mirage 2000:>Existing asset with excellent record>Combat proven and mature support systems>Makes sense considering depleting IAF assets and long lead time for new assets to be inducted>Can counter anything the Pakis are currently coming up with>Upgrades are nothing to be sneered at as long as done in scheduled time

2.1 Billion is quite large just for upgrade.But i think still IAF must have thought about this before inking such a big deal.Probably Mirage 2000's Kargil performance and Less life cost as compared to other aircraft would have made IAF to take this decision.Well since now deal is set and India has big and growing defence budget,IAF's firepower will surely increase.However upgradation should not take much time or it will diminish the advantage of this deal.

It wasn't a hardfought contract at all as India was at the loser's end from the very beginning, thanks to the MoD's policy of awarding aircraft LIFEX contracts only to the OEMs. And since was a declaratory policy, both Dassault and THALES exploited it to the hilt! A far better option would have been to upgrade the avionics suite with Israel's IAI, thereby halving the upgrade's per-unit cost. What a waste!

This is like upgrading camry to lexus base model when a new lexus vx is available for same price, doesnt make sense,,unless its a chanakya move by babydoms to covertly pass something surprising masked by this upgrade move..

I like Mirage 2000. But the price tag seems a lil too hefty. I mean you could buy brand new aircrafts for this price. I understand that it would take a lot more time to buy new aircrafts and working with the French has its own advantages( remember Kargil and the jerry rigged LGBs), but still the cost of upgrade per unit irks me.

Modern fighter aircraft are not milk in cartons to be picked off the shelf of a supermarket!One cannot go to a friendly neighborhood shop and say,BTW i want 10 0r 20 more aircraft then i was asking for for!!!The procurement of fighters is complex process(more so in India) and even after signing of a contract, a considerable time will be taken to deliver and induct the aircraft.

A new aircraft, with the associated systems,avionics and support is certainly not cheap. It makes greater sense to upgrade 50 already capable fighters in a certain process than go in for the longer uncertain fresh procurement.In terms f national security,costs can mean different things.The IAF can only fight with those systems it already has!!The MRCA,new aircraft are plans,processes,work in progress!The certainty of availability of an asset has its own cost advantage!

Though the 2000 is a proven capable aircraft spending that much for an upgrade amounts to treason and not acting in the interest of the state unless it came with 50 spare engines.....another gorshkov..... Penny wise rupee foolish. Sad day indeed when you think France could of provided 40 rafs quick smart and the support centres could oflearnt quick to support nuke capable rafs. 10/4

Shiv,Can you get the details on this upgrade?.. What is the reason behind this costly upgrade instead of procuring new aircraft?...There must be some calculations behind it right?.. $40 million is too much for upgrade .. this will surely diminish the chance for Rafale in MMRCA

Better to have an aircraft which is in step with times than which could turn obsolete soon.

How many new / mmrca / etc fighters would $2bn give - 20? Upgraded mirages will be equivalent in capabilities if not more to the mmrcas etc.

As for the costs, answer could lie in what is included as part of the upgrade? Moreover, how much have upgrades of similar kind to similar aircraft cost in the recent past will tell us whether this deal is justified or not but think this deal needs to be tempered with the fact that it is a critical component of India's nuclear triad.

M2K is a fine aircraft and loved by the IAF and the upgrade includes undisclosed number of MICA which is being missed by most.

however still it sounds a little too much. though it may give M2K another 15-20 years, i would have really liked if the IAF had ordered a few more squadrons of LCA mark 1 which will be brand new with at the least 30 yrs of lifetime.

besides i really don't think LCA is less capable than M2K and if one looks at the upgrade schedule it will take 7-8 yrs where as LCA will start being inducted from 2011.

i think IAF missed an opportunity here. given, that LCA is yet to achieve FOC - also does not hold IMO. it will follow logically in months.

I think i agree with Manish @ 7:56 AM and his intuitive thinking.. also think that when Putin visited India last, deal for additional 29 Mig 29k fighters was signed, Obama got the C-17s, and agreements around additional orders to C-130J were being closed..and now this Mirage upgrade deal.. i think all these events lead me to believe that Eurofighter might be "the chosen one"..if these agreements of appeasing or placating the potential losers of the MMRCA contract are anything to go by..

Buying new fighter aircraft is not a good idea. You have to come up with new infer structure and have to train pilots, technical staff and lot more to do. It is foolish to dismantle the existing infrastructure. More over we are inducting MMRCA in near future. It’s not easy for our pilots to adopt new fighter. Remember it was battle proven aircraft. So it is a good idea to upgrade Mirage2000H but $2bn is cause of concern main idea of upgrading Mirage is to push it up to mca or lca mak2 induction

Ah we Indians! First we complain about the Russians using us, then we complained about the Americans using & abusing us, now we're complaining about the French using us! Brilliant!

We cant do anything for ourselves, we cant think for ourselves we cant even decide for ourselves. And we're crying about a UNSC seat!The problem is most of us are rather simple minded(just read some of the comments here or on any news site) we easily give in to be used by others! We're not leaders we're followers.

The contract for modernization of India’s 51 Mirage 2000-H jets is expected to be worth 2.2 billion euros ($2.9 billion), of which 900 million euros is for the procurement of air-to-air Mica missiles made by MBDA !!

The core of the enhanced capabilities lies in the Thales Modular Data Processing Unit (MDPU). According to Dassault Aviation, it has a processing power 50 times higher than that of the 2084 XRI-type computer fitted on the early versions of Mirage 2000-5. The MDPU is the cornerstone of the avionics/weapon upgradeability of the Rafale.

Mualayam singh Yadav dwarfed MK Gandhi, who (Yadav) suggested to gift 2000 crores to Pakistan was made Indian defnse minister.

Our own Rajiv Gandhi with BOFORS scam.

Dont you know India is a land of thousand scams and million traitors a la Jaichand?

If we dont criticise, complain n comment against such heinous crimes commited by none other than our own leaders, thus try to bring up mass awakening, then we would be stamped as fawning underlings with servile attitude.

Unlike the Mig-29 upgrade this one will include full weapons package. Several guided rockets and munitions are part of the programme. A few hundreds of Mica will be procured to arm the aircraft instead of current 530D.

Defense is a black hole for a nation's budget. No matter how much money is poured in, there is always a room for more. USA is a great example. At an annual defense budget of 5% GDP, or around $500 billion, USA still suffers from cuts in procurement plans for fighters, aircraft carriers, transports etc. India, sadly, is following in the footsteps of all the previous powerful nations: as soon as we got money, we have started procuring absurd amount of weaponry. $5 billion for C17. $3 billion for Scorpene and plans for a dozen more subs. $12 billion for 126 fighters. $3 billion for old aircraft carrier.Yes, there always will be a justification for spending all this money and more in the future: but with a potential to bankrupt the govt. India doesn't need to start a war today or in near future with anyone nor does Pakistan is in a position to defeat us with our current strength. Even with all these imports, India is no match for China, both militarily or economically. And for a worst case scenario, we have nukes. If there is any possibility, Indians must refuse expensive foreign import of weapons. They serve little purpose by making us poorer and arrogant. We have many other fields to focus on. Internal security is one of them. More Indians die today of famine, accidents, diseases and terrorist attacks then by a traditional war. Focusing on making our country internally robust and developed will lead to more benefits than mere inking of these contracts.

The weapons package is what drives this upgrade to 2.1 billion dollars. The Mica ER/IR are incredibly expensive missiles but they are very capable on the other hand. Besides 30% of this deal is coming back as offsets. And the weapons packages is rumored to be anywhere from 700-900 million euros which is a signigicant portion of the contract.

Congrats IAF on getting a deal through MoD , Mr A K Antony, PMO, And rest of bureacracy!!

First we complain that MoD is lazy and not even buying artillery but when they buy we complain its too expensive. Unless the actual breakdown is not known then it is difficult to generalize. Nowadays, lifetime maintenance packages can be very expensive for fighter aircraft but still it is better to buy them. Someone else was saying the MICA missiles justify this price. Also, feel that this upgrade price is justified only if it is on fast track and not " one plane a year" like our "esteeemed" MIG corporation.

I'm sure the IAF must have thought about the adjustment training for the new Aircrafts. Rather, use already available aircraft which you are used to.I kind of feel they are gearing up for the PAK FGA, slated to be delivered by 2017?Consider this, another MRCA order instead of an Upgrade wud mean the delivery wud take atleast 2015-2017 to complete it.By then PAK FGA Deliveries will start. We're ordering abt 250 of those beauties. That means a lot of time and resources would go into adjusting our pilots for the PAK FGA. So now i guess this makes greater sense to upgrade considering the maintainence and training costs which are associated with them.

3:55 PM" Anonymous said...Buying new fighter aircraft is not a good idea. You have to come up with new infer structure and have to train pilots, technical staff and lot more to do. It is foolish to dismantle the existing infrastructure. More over we are inducting MMRCA in near future. It’s not easy for our pilots to adopt new fighter. Remember it was battle proven aircraft. So it is a good idea to upgrade Mirage2000H but $2bn is cause of concern main idea of upgrading Mirage is to push it up to mca or lca mak2 induction

bhagat choudary"

Don't we think this way when we buy new planes from american including hercules130, c17, P8. And based of this 5 of 6 fighters will be out of MRCA race because they will be new to IAF. We have relationship with Mig only. So we should by MIG-35, why all this fake stunt of race?

the only way to resolve this is to get how much we paid for the MICA and other ordnance as part of this upgrade. if someone has that 'authentic', and not hearsay figure then pls. let us know?...lets subtract that from the overall price and get the real price of mirage upgrade....someone has that info?